Two former French prisoners at Guantanamo Bay filed a lawsuit with the European Court of Human Rights, after the French Court of Cassation issued a ruling last January not hearing the case on charges of "torture" against their American prisoners.
The French newspaper "Le Figaro" said in a report that the two French nationals, Nizar Sassi and Mourad Ben Chellali, had been arrested in Afghanistan after the attacks of September 11, 2001, and then imprisoned at the US military base in Cuba, before their release and return to France.
The newspaper pointed out that the two former prisoners challenged the appeal ruling issued by the French judiciary, which states that American soldiers cannot be prosecuted individually - even if the violations attributed to them are proven - because they "represent their country and were acting in that capacity."
The newspaper added that the initial ruling was issued not to hear the case in 2017, then the Paris Court of Appeal confirmed it in December 2019, and the Criminal Chamber of the Court of Cassation approved it last January.
Lawyers William Bordon and Apollin Kania believe that "this decision is contrary to international law, torture cannot be a sovereign act that guarantees impunity for its perpetrators, and the principle of immunity must not protect the most serious violations of human rights."
"We expect the European Court of Human Rights to put an end to this impunity for foreign government officials when they commit the most serious international crimes, as was the case at Guantanamo," the lawyers add.
US accused of "torture"
Both Nizar Sassi and Mourad Ben Chellali accuse the US authorities of "kidnapping", "arbitrary detention" and "torture", and confirm that they were subjected to numerous violations during their detention, such as broadcasting deafening music, exposure to flashes of light that hurt the eyes, and violent interrogations at times. Various, sleep deprivation, confinement in small wire cages.
During the investigations, they had requested a hearing in France with former US President George W. Bush and his then Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld - who died at the end of last June - but to no avail. They also demanded to summon the commander of the Guantanamo base who worked there from 2002 to 2004.
It should be noted that the Guantanamo prison, which opened in 2002 shortly after the US invasion of Afghanistan in response to the attacks of September 11, 2001, held approximately 780 prisoners.
Recently, US President Joe Biden promised to close the prison before the end of his term.